


Kittens Can Happen to Anyone

by tsukinofaerii



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Kittens, M/M, shameless fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-10
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-02-12 15:37:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2115408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsukinofaerii/pseuds/tsukinofaerii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles shows up at Derek's door with a box of orphaned kittens, Derek has no idea what he's getting into. With the cats, either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kittens Can Happen to Anyone

**Author's Note:**

> Another full moon, another scramble to get something, anything, posted. Many thanks to ratherastory for enabling me, and to waterofthemoon for the quick beta! The title is a quote by Paul Gallico. 
> 
> Warning for brief, non-graphic mention of animal death.

The door indicator light buzzed. A second later, it buzzed again. And then once more.

Derek rolled over on the couch, moving his arm off his eyes so he could glare at the door. It was one of those wonderful, lazy Saturday mornings when nothing was trying to kill him, and he'd wanted to enjoy it while it lasted. The Sheriff's _days since a Nematon accident_ sign had reached double digits for the first time ever. Nothing could possibly come out of anyone at his door before lunch on a Saturday. They hadn't called, so it probably wasn't life or death.

The door buzzed again, red light flashing judgmentally. 

Groaning, Derek set aside his book and rolled to the floor, bare toes curling at the touch of cool wood. He was still in his sleep clothes—a pair of sweats and a t-shirt that had seen better days. Not his best, but anyone who was coming around on a Saturday morning would just have to deal with it. 

At least he'd brushed his teeth. 

Lumbering upright, he made his way across the room to the door, wrenching it open just as the door buzzed again. "What is it?" 

"Hey, man!" Stiles startled back from leaning on the buzzer with his elbow, dancing hurriedly upright. Bags hung from both elbows, and his hands were full of a taped-up cardboard box. He grinned, wide and shameless, jiggling the box to keep it from tilting. "I thought you'd never answer. What's up?" 

He looked good. Really good, for someone who was approximately two months from defending a Master's thesis. Tanned, hair a shade lighter from sun, and carrying more muscle than just the occasional game of lacrosse could give. He even smelled good, like someone who spent as much time sweating as around books. 

It had been a while since Derek had seen Stiles, really—over the summer, and mostly in passing, life pulling them in different directions. Seeing him up close with all the changes time had wrought was a shock to Derek's system. 

And then he looked down. 

Derek was used to weird. Weird had been his life, from the time he'd chewed a hole in his cradle as a baby to the time travel clusterfuck that had been 2014. Even with the Nematon settling down, Beacon Hills was a hive of the bizarre. He'd never developed a sense of normal. 

Which was why when he saw that the box was full of tiny bundles of fur, the first thing out of Derek's mouth was, "Please tell me none of those are Scott." 

"What?" Stiles actually startled backwards. "Dude, no, Scott's in San Fran for the weekend! Why would you..." He looked down, and sudden understanding dawned. "Okay, I get why you would ask that, but nope, completely normal, nothing weird here at all. Just a box of tiny, helpless kittens. Tiny, tiny, kittens with no place to go."

There was nothing in Stiles' heartbeat that suggested a lie, so Derek just nodded and said, "Good," before starting to shut the door. 

"Hey!" Stiles shoved a leg in the way before he could get it completely closed. "Is that any way to treat an old friend?"

"I'm not taking a kitten, Stiles." Once upon a time, Derek probably would have shoved the leg out or clawed it off, but that had been a long time ago. Now he just let the door bounce off it as Stiles slithered inside and dropped the box on his kitchen table. His nose wrinkled at the smell of baby fur, milk and poop. Endless, endless poop.

"I don't want you to take one," Stiles promised and, huh, that was the truth. Right up to, "I want you to take all of them."

"That's not any better!" 

"Just for a little while!" The bags followed, making heavy thunks as he dropped them. They'd been hanging from his elbows for so long that the canvas had bitten in deep, leaving bright red marks behind. "Come on, they're only two weeks old. Once they're big enough you can give them away. They just need some help right now."

And then the big guns came out. Reaching into the box, Stiles pulled out what Derek assumed was a giant gray cotton ball until it opened its murky blue eyes and meeped. 

Reluctantly, Derek let Stiles shove the kitten into his arms. "Where's their mother?" he asked suspiciously, cupping his hand around it to keep it from falling. It stared back in wide-eyed amazement, needle-sharp claws digging into his forearm. Then it yawned, showing a set of toothless pink gums. Wiggling around, it curled up in the crook of his elbow, face shoved against his ribs. 

A tiny part of Derek's heart melted. _Damn it._

"I think she was hit by a car or something," Stiles answered. He kept his eyes on the box, one hand dangling inside to play with the rest of the litter. "I heard them under the back porch, and there was a dead cat in the road... I'd take them, but they need feeding every couple of hours. I've got classes, and my dad just doesn't have time." 

In his arms, the kitten was kneading. He was so screwed. "What gave you the idea that I have time for a litter of kittens?" Derek made one last Hail Mary play. 

"You're ridiculously rich and don't have a job. You have nothing but time for a litter of kittens." A second gun came out, this time by way of a darker gray fluff ball. It twisted unhappily, crying and trying to wrap its paws around Stiles' wrist when he held it up. "Come on, can you say no to this face?" 

The kitten wasn't looking at him, but Stiles was, with big hopeful brown eyes and that faint air of sadness that had followed him everywhere the past few years. His hair stuck out like he'd been yanking on it, and there was just a hint of a lip wobble. 

Artificial and underhanded as it was, it worked. Derek tried to hold out, to tell himself that he used to be an alpha and that Stiles didn't control him. It lasted roughly thirty seconds before he felt his shoulders rounding out and his will crumbling. 

"Only until they're old enough to find homes," he said sternly. 

Stiles punched the air with his kitten-free hand. "Yes!" He twirled, making the kitten screech in alarm before he brought it safely in against his chest. "Hear that, buddy? Uncle Derek's going to take care of you." 

"And you're going to help whenever you have time," Derek added on hurriedly. "I'm not going to cover for your ass completely. Every free minute you have is going to be here, taking care of them. Vet visits, too." 

"Yeah, yeah, you've got it, dude," Stiles waved it off, bouncing from foot to foot like he was slow dancing with the kitten. His shoulders twisted, hips swaying to the music in his head. "No problem. I'll be here every day, rain or shine."

Derek decidedly did not watch as Stiles twirled the angry bundle of fluff around his dining room. He couldn't fight off the feeling that he'd just made a gigantic mistake.

* * *

Derek awoke to a chorus of desperate, pitiful little cries coming from the box by his bed. Groaning, he rolled over, rubbing at his eyes until he could read the digital clock. 

Just before three in the morning. Feeding time. Again.

He really was going to kill Stiles one day.

Sitting up took an act of sheer will, powered only by the knowledge that nothing would bring back peace and quiet except a full bottle of formula. It took Derek a couple tries to get his feet on the ground, rather than in the box. From there, he somehow managed to grope his way upright and into the kitchen. He'd only been caring for the litter for half a day, but mixing the formula was already rote to the point where he only needed to open his eyes once, and that was to make sure it was fully mixed. 

Back in the bedroom, the box was coming alive. The kittens—four of them—wobbled around trying to get out. Luckily, they were too small, and mostly ended up falling all over each other, legs still too weak to let them stay up for long. Dropping down to the floor beside the box, he reached in to scoop out the closest one. She—he thought it was a she, but they all mostly looked and smelled alike to him—latched on eagerly, already well-versed in the ways of the bottle. 

It didn't take long to feed them. They were so small that one bottle was enough for all. But by the time the last one—a patchy black and white probably-boy—had finished, Derek barely had the energy to crawl back up onto the mattress. 

He passed out face-down for his next two hour nap.

* * *

The sun shined through the window, directly onto Derek's eyes. He groaned and rolled over until his face was out of the sunbeam, but the damage was done. Consciousness started seeping back in, along with the niggling feeling that something was wrong. Experience had taught him better than to ignore that. Grumbling, he crawled out of bed and staggered toward the kitchen for coffee, ruffling Stiles' hair as he passed the couch. 

Half way to the kitchen, he paused. Backed up. Blinked. 

Stiles was passed out on his couch, dead asleep with three kittens on his stomach and a fourth tucked up between his ribs and the couch cushion. Four tiny hearts beat a quick counterpoint to Stiles louder, slower one. That was what had been missing from his bedroom: the extra heartbeats. 

He barely fit, with his shoulders crammed against the arm of the couch, his chin tilted at an awkward angle, and one of his legs hanging off the side in a desperate attempt to balance. His shirt had ridden up to show a dark trail of hair that dipped down into his pants, which were tented slightly by what was definitely an early morning bulge. 

Derek yanked his eyes away, flushing, and started carefully transferring the kittens from their Stiles-nest back into the box. The bottle of formula had left a tiny puddle where it had fallen on the floor. He cleaned it all up and then went to finish making a pot of coffee, washed out the bottle, and filled it with cold water. Back on the couch, Stiles still hadn't moved. 

With a hand made slightly unsteady by coffee deprivation, Derek held the bottle over him. A droplet formed, wobbling uncertainly back and forth before it finally built up enough to let go. 

It took ten drops before Stiles came sputtering to life, swiping at his face and swinging upright so fast he nearly fell off the couch. "What the hell dude, what are you—" He paused, eyes going huge. Frantically, he started patting around. "Where are the—"

"I moved them." Crossing his arms, Derek strove to look as judgmental and in-control as possible for a man in his pajama pants. "What are you doing here?"

Stiles stared at him, then slowly said, "Helping with the kittens. You know, like I told you I would. You remember that, right?" 

"I mean—" Frustrated, Derek gestured at the loft. "Here _now_? You don't have a key; how did you get in?" 

"Five years of my dad teaching me how to pick locks if I'm ever kidnapped. Which, I'd like to add, has been handy a couple of times, so no complaints." Giving his head a shake, Stiles ran his hand through his hair, somehow managing to make his bedhead worse. It stuck up in stegosaurus spikes, pointing in every direction except flat. "Look, you wanted me to help, so I'm helping. It's a Sunday, I don't have classes, I thought you'd want to sleep in. If it's a problem, I won't do it again. Okay?"

Derek chewed over that, weighing the benefits of Stiles being able to help with the kittens versus Stiles'... Stiles. On one hand, he was pretty sure Stiles had taken at least two feedings, because he definitely didn't remember waking up at six, and it was past eight. On the other hand was Stiles. 

The Sheriff's _accident_ counter wouldn't stay in the double digits forever. It _would_ zero out, and for most things Derek was the first line of defense. "Fine, I'll have a key made."

His answer was a giant grin. "I didn't even have to wear you down."

"Whatever." Turning on his heel, Derek stalked back toward the kitchen. "Come on, I made coffee."

* * *

Time passed. The kittens got bigger. Their eyes lost the newborn blue and they started the task of seriously exploring the box, climbing up the edges only to tumble back down when their claws wouldn't hold in the cardboard. At first Derek had been worried, but when the only effect of the fall was an indignant squeak or two (and when Stiles laughed at him for mother henning), he left them to it. 

Stiles didn't take up much space or time, especially when most of Derek's attention was on keeping the cats' stomachs full enough that he could sleep, or sleeping while Stiles did it for him. It was easy to get used to having him there in the background, to start making meals for two instead of one, to occasionally shove the box at him and then stagger off for a blissful eight hours. 

By the time the kittens no longer needed to be fed every few hours, Stiles had wormed his way into Derek's life to a worryingly permanent-feeling degree. He came by the loft whenever he wasn't actively engaged in school, bringing more formula and toys like small mice with bells inside. Derek got used to seeing him camped out at the kitchen table, staring at his laptop like it was in danger of sprouting wings and eating him. Which probably wouldn't happen before he graduated, and if it did, being dead was a pretty good reason for missing class. It had worked for Allison and Scott twice each, and Malia held the local title at eight years presumed dead with almost no makeup work required. Most of the teachers at UCBH would understand.

As predicted, the counter flipped back around to zero again with the advent of a colony of pixies in the elementary school air ducts, which hadn't been too bad. It had taken all day, and he'd been exhausted, but the worst that had come of it had been holes in his jeans. Luckily, Stiles had the evening off from classes and had been able to take care of the kittens while Derek was being poked with thorn-spears. He came home sometime around two in the morning to find Stiles passed out on the floor, face-down in his laptop.

Rolling his eyes, Derek moved Stiles' face from the keyboard, saved his work and edged the box out from under the coffee table. Inside, the furballs were still curled up in a pile, so he left them there, covered Stiles in a blanket and went to collapse onto his bed. 

Some indeterminate amount of time later, he was woken up by a noise. A snicker, followed by a burst of light. Growling, Derek turned his head only to find his movements curtailed by a furry lump under his chin that meowed in complaint when he shifted. Two more were on his chest, and one had found its way under his armpit. A second human-sized heartbeat in the room fluttered erratically. 

Another flash went off. 

Baring his teeth, Derek arched his neck to keep from moving the kitten on his throat and twisted to snarl at Stiles, who was standing in the doorway with his phone. "If you tell anyone about this, I _will_ find a way to kill you and get away with it." 

"Sure you will." Stiles snapped another picture. Even when Derek let his teeth and eyes shift, it didn't seem to faze him. He twisted the phone sideways, thumbs tapping away at high speeds. "You'll have to do it after Scott finishes laughing his furry butt off. You don't mind if I put this on Facebook, do you?" 

"Stiles, wait—" Derek started to lunge, but the kittens on his throat and chest started to slip as soon as he moved. He found himself scrambling to keep from being shredded by needle-sharp claws. The only one undisturbed was the one under his arm. 

"Oops, too late," Stiles chirruped, waving the phone. "I'm going to head out. I'll be back for lunch."

" _Stiles_!" 

Laughing, Stiles let himself out, leaving Derek to deal with the wrath of the feline kind. The laughter didn't stop until he was in the Jeep, and even then it might have just been the sound of the engine drowning it out.

* * *

After a week of trying to keep the kittens in the box, Derek gave up and adapted to his new position as an oversized cat bed. Stiles magnanimously stopped teasing him about it. Eventually.

* * *

"So you've got three girls and a boy." Scott sprawled out on the floor, legs spread in a wide V with his feet against the couch to make an artificial boundary the kittens literally could care less about. "You should get them in to Deaton's for their first shots, and we've got some connections to deal with spaying and neutering for practically nothing, but there's some forms you'll need to fill out."

Derek watched in amusement as Scott spent more time scooping them back into his lap than examining the little gray one he was holding. Stiles took the couch cushion directly above Scott, and took care of the ones who tried that escape route. It was a Kitten Relocation Perpetual Motion Machine. 

The darker gray one crawled over Scott's knee, only to be gently picked up and put back in confinement. She mewled in outrage and immediately tried again, with the same results In the meantime, her black and white brother had used her distraction to succeed in his jailbreak, and had made a beeline for Derek. Needlepoint claws dug into his calf as the kitten leaped up onto his jeans and started climbing. 

"So they're healthy?" he asked, gritting his teeth as the kitten reached his thigh, where the jeans fit tighter. 

"Oh yeah, they're doing great." Scott switched out one gray for the other and was rewarded by a sneeze in the face and a deeply unimpressed look. "Poppa Derek and Daddy Stiles have done a great job, haven't they?" he asked her, bopping her on the nose. "You're just about ready to find a forever home."

Derek's budding outrage at _Poppa Derek_ dropped away along with his stomach. The kitten reached his hip, and he absently pulled him up onto his shoulder before he could get his claws in anything too delicate. "Forever home?" he repeated, numb. 

"Yeah! I brought a camera so we can get started on flyers or something." Stiles waved said camera, which was an _actual_ camera and not just his phone. He'd been _planning_. "I know this has been a huge time sink for you, dude. We'll get them out of your hair in no time."

"Yeah, I... thanks." The boy, which Derek had mentally started to think of as Chaplin, curled into his neck, purring hard enough that his entire body vibrated with it. "Email me the pictures. I'll put them online." Later. They were only seven weeks. That was too young. Derek was sure that eight weeks was the right age. He'd do it next Friday. Or the one after, just to make sure they were good and grown. 

Really. He would. 

Scott and Stiles glanced at each other, and Derek could feel the judgment. 

"You're not going to, are you?" Stiles finally said, relocating the creamy-pale kitten to his lap after her third attempt to escape via the couch. "You're totally going to keep them."

"No!" The judgment continued, and didn't stop even when Derek glared at them. "They're just really small still, alright? I'll do it when they're more grown."

"Sure you will." Scott smirked and loaded the two grays onto Stiles' lap, then stood, brushing imaginary dirt off his ass. "I've got to run. I've got a date with Kira and Allison. I'll tell Deaton to expect a call from you about their shots." 

"Yeah, fine," Derek grumbled.

Bending over to grab his backpack, Scott stopped to scratch the three on Stiles' lap. "I'll see you guys soon. Be good for Pop and Dad, okay?

_That_ was a fight Derek could safely pick. "We're not their parents!"

"Yeah, yeah, I've seen the Facebook photos, okay?" Grinning at Derek's outraged expression, Scott swung his bag over his shoulder and made for the door. It closed with a slam, leaving an awkward silence behind. 

"We kind of are, you know," Stiles said quietly. He wrapped his long fingers around the cream one's stomach, wiggling them in her fur until she started trying to catch them. "They wouldn't know any difference."

"They're not staying," Derek said firmly. If his heart skipped, well. Stiles couldn't hear it, and Derek had practice lying to himself. "They'll be going to new homes a couple of weeks later than usual. That's all."

Stiles' nose wrinkled, which turned into a wince when tiny teeth sank into his finger. "Sure." He extracted himself carefully and examined the finger for damage. There wasn't a scent of blood, so whatever injury was there was minimal. "I guess I should give you your key back now, though. You know, since they're on solids and everything."

"You could keep it." Derek looked away to adjust Chaplin, making sure he couldn't slip off his perch. The kitten, who was solidly planted on his shoulder, grumbled unhappily at the jostling. "Since they're going to be here another week or two. In case something like the pixies comes up again."

"Gotta stay on watch for pixies. They're terrifying. You never know where those spears are going to go." The steady pace of Stiles' heart started to skip just a hair faster, and a hint of adrenaline-anxiety entered his scent. "You sure you want me to keep it?" 

"I'm sure." 

Springs on the couch squeaked, and then rubber soles on wood floors. Then Chaplin's weight was being lifted off his shoulder. Derek looked up just in time to see Stiles set the kitten on the ground. "How about..." Stiles stepped in closer, draping his arms loose around Derek's neck. "I'll give it back when you post the kittens for adoption. Deal?"

"Two weeks," Derek insisted, but he let his fingers hook in Stiles' belt loops. "Then they're gone." 

"Of course," Stiles murmured, right before he kissed him.

* * *

Derek never got his key back.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Kittens Can Happen to Anyone by tsukinofaerii](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5735521) by [fire_juggler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fire_juggler/pseuds/fire_juggler)




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